Andrés Alfaro Hoffman, ADI Cultura Trajectory 2022.
The collection receives a part of the ADI-FAD Industrial Design Association, ADI-FAD Board has decided to award the ADI Cultura Trajectory Award to the Alfaro Hofmann collection. The distinction wants to recognize the effort of the collection to preserve and disseminate the heritage value of the objects, and to explain through them the profession of industrial design.
Considered one of the most important private collections in Europe in terms of industrial design, more than six thousand objects, mainly household appliances, are currently part of the collection, acquired at the end of the 1970s by interior designer Andrés Alfaro Hofmann.
Everyday objects allow us to understand the relationship between design and industry, and how constant technological and material improvements make possible the articulation of new formal archetypes, through which designers build products that contribute to improving people’s well-being.
The Friday 25th November 2022, We visited his warehouse in Valencia, the temporary exhibition “Automobile and appliance” and the exhibition of the Collection. We take a taxi from the center of Valencia to Godella, and 15 minutes later we were in an industrial Polygon with a huge space. Members of ADI: Jordi Blasi, Dani Vila, Genis Sennen, Salvi Plaja, Neus Escoda together with Eduardo Teixeira-Alves, Director of Partnerships & International Promotion of World Design Capital Valencia 2022 were received by Andrés Alfaro and Remedios Samper.
At the entrance, we get surprised, and we discovered the N70 from Niu Houses project, The Pavilion N70 is the smallest surface model of 71 square meters from a bigger system to build houses in the most efficient and effective way. The purpose of innovating construction systems is to increase the precision in the materialization of architecture. Housing is the oldest product that exists and is the worst and more corrupted ecosystem, neither architects, builders nor suppliers are improving the quality of the process of building human environments with strict certain deadlines and costs. €151.200 for this module of 75 square meters.
We visit the last day of the temporary exhibition “Automobile and household appliances. The domestication of the machine” which stayed from 16th of July to 18th of November 2022.
The automobile and the electrical appliance have been, without a doubt, the introducers of the value of design among the public. In addition to their aesthetic connection, they were the first consumer goods to enter homes at the beginning of the 20th century, through mechanized production, with the aim of satisfying the needs of users.
The exhibition is divided into six areas or times: Standardization, Functionalism, Styling, Organicism, Miniaturization, and Spatial era.
“These mass-produced objects took a long time to be accepted due to their rough and noisy presence,” say their promoters. At first, the vehicles were driven by professional drivers and electric companies sold their first domestic appliances accompanied by courses on home electrification.
It was the task of engineering and design to create friendly and intuitive machines aimed at consumers, with hardly any technical knowledge, who had to understand the new energy sources as tools for social improvement.
Efficiency and ease of use acted as key stimuli for the development of these products that represented modernity and progress, and whose aesthetic demands were linked to the need to be successful in the market.
The exhibition focuses on various models of automobiles and household appliances that we consider essential to understanding the importance of design in the domestication process of technology in the home, at the most creative moment in the evolution of this discipline, as was the first half of the Last century. These pieces are now the object of the Automobile and Appliance exhibition. The domestication of the machine, a project promoted by the Alfaro Hofmann Collection and Grupo Ibérica curated by Andrés Alfaro Hofmann and Remedios Samper Villalba.
Then we can visit The Alfaro Hofmann Collection, a private entity dedicated to the exhibition and dissemination of its collections on the culture of everyday objects. It has more than 5,000 pieces of diverse origins, mostly electrical appliances, in addition to all the graphic material that accompanies each object. At the entrance of the collection, we find the logos of the most important brands of electric products and appliances.
One of the first robust and operational hand mixers, with a compact design, selected by ADIFAD in 1964 was MR2 Minipimer, came out and was a sales success, the retail price in 1966 was 1160 pts and it was manufactured until 1984. One of the first products of the Spanish Braun, (BRESA). Lluelles worked till 1970 when Gillette bought Braun in 1968.
Godella is where was based The atelier from Andreu Alfaro, the sculpture, and we can see the place where he worked meeting a collection of the artistic legacy inherited, which includes works from the most significant stages of his professional career: plates, modules, generatrices, variable geometries, linear figures, and Goethe’s universe. The Collection is made up of 49 sculptures and 33 drawings.
The members of the board work to be neutral before the commissions and the juries, but since 2020 with the Delta trajectory award to Seat we decided to add value to group photography, which is the prizes and the book, we have created a process to award prizes from the board, this year two career awards to BD Barcelona and to the Andrés Alfaro Hofmann collection. This process began with proposals among the different members of the board and a presentation of candidates, with their subsequent voting. The members: Salvi Plaja (Cap de Disseny a Simon), Raffaella Perrone (Operative Director of the Design Area at IED Barcelona Escola Superior de Disseny), Miriam Giordano (Secretary and Founder of Labóh), Mercè Rovira (Treasurer and General Director of Mobles 114), Dani Vila (Designer at Nahtrang), Guillem Ferran (Product Design Coordinator at ESDAP Barcelona Llotja), Gennís Senén (Designer of Producte and founding partner of Gravina), Ariadna Rousaud (Journalist specialized in design and storytelling), Virgínia Angulo (Strategic Designer), Jordi Blasi (Industrial designer, teacher and editorial editor) and Joan Recasens (Enginyer at Disseny Industrial i Dissenyador. Creatiu a FlopWork).
The collection is available on their website with very good pictures and details of authors, designers, manufacturers, years and concepts…
